And a Bottle of Rum
by HardlyFatal
Summary: Dragged to a Halloween party, Brienne tries to pass her time there unnoticed. Captain Jaime Sparrow does not let her.


Brienne did not want to be there. At all. But she had promised Sansa, so there she was. She felt a little ashamed for exerting the least amount of effort possible on her Halloween costume, just wearing the naval admiral's uniform she put on for her historical re-creation events and calling it fine. Not ashamed enough to do anything else, but… enough to notice it, when Sansa gave her a look upon entering Winterfell's great hall and spotting her there in her tall hat, looming above the crowd like a stilt walker who happened to be built like a defensive lineman.

Everyone around her was in various states of inebriation and/or sugar craziness. Each corner of the hall featured an interactive event such a bobbing for apples, keg stands, and the like. Brienne pulled her hat down as low over her face as it would go and prayed few people recognized her, because the idea of being compelled by red-faced drunks to participate in their sodden antics truly horrified her. She withdrew her pocket watch and tried to calculate how long it would take before she could reasonably take her leave without causing offense to her hostess. And despite the heaving throng filling the first floor of the castle nearly to bursting, somehow Sansa would know the moment Brienne stepped a toe off the Starks' ancestral grounds.

She brushed aside a veil of artificial cobweb and stationed herself halfway behind the opened door of a coffin standing on end, gaudy red satin lining reflecting the lights from the disco ball twirling manically overhead. The music was, surprisingly, not terrible.

It wasn't _good_, but it wasn't terrible. She hummed along to Thom Yorke's _Suspirium_ and gazed longingly at the buffet table laden with incredible-looking food: red velvet cake, the frosting of which looked like blood dripping down its sides; 'grave dirt', which was just chocolate pudding with a thick dusting of pulverized oreos; 'mummy eyeballs', more widely known as meatballs with phyllo dough wound around it like a mummy's wrappings; jack o' lantern quesadillas; 'black magic' margaritas, just the regular drink but with enough dark food coloring to tint the Green Fork actually green; and 'ectoplasm', gin and tonics that somehow gave off a spooky glow.

But to get to the buffet table, she'd have to wend her way through the masses, and they were so busy acting out Rocky Horror Picture Show that she knew she would be risking life and limb to make the attempt. Resigned to being hungry in addition to bored, Brienne slumped against the wall and sighed.

She wasn't sure if it was the disco ball, throwing flashes of light that made anything they hit look ethereal, but… the crowd parted at one point during _Let's Do the Time Warp Again_ and Brienne spotted a man across the room. A really, quite ridiculously attractive man, somehow gorgeous in spite of his silly Jack Sparrow outfit.

Apart from a questionable addition of honey-blond dreadlocks to really flesh out the costume, he made even more of a visually appealing Captain Sparrow than Johnny Depp had. He was tall, with lean hips showcased by a colorful sash. Leather trousers were wrapped with loving closeness around long, muscled legs before tucking into thigh-high boots. He, like her, wore a poofy shirt and waistcoat, but where hers only emphasized her lack of feminine charms, his accented the trimness of his waist and broad chest.

He wore an artful smudge of kohl around each eye, as if he needed anything to draw attention to those smoldering features, and the rest of his face… it was shocking, how appealing he was. Men that handsome didn't grow on trees, especially not trees so far north. The men of Winterfell and its environs tended to the bulky and rugged, dark of hair and gray of eye, wolfish and bearish, and were as like the feline creature who had just arrived as Brienne was to Sansa, i.e., not at all. Sansa was willowy and slender, achingly beautiful, and Brienne was… not.

She'd thought herself immune to extravagant displays of male beauty, after long exposure to Sansa's brothers and her thwarted longing for her old friend, Renly. She was wrong.

So, so wrong.

She'd fallen in love at first sight with Renly. 'Captain Sparrow' had her tumbling headlong into full-blown _lust_. Every erogenous zone on her body heated, tautened, readied itself for an encounter that would never occur.

But, oh, how she wanted it to.

Brienne flushed, with arousal and embarrassment in equal measure, at her response to him. She knew she was drooling at him like a stunned haddock, open-mouthed and red-faced, but the sight of him was like a blow to the head. She felt a bit dazed, in fact. Heat flashed through her, awareness trickling down her spine like the roll of a bead of sweat on a hot day… _or_ after vigorous sex.

Not that she'd ever had any, her sexual experience being relegated to the sad classifications of 'few, far between, and lackluster'. But she possessed a very fine imagination and had read more than her share of erotic stories. She was certain she had a good idea what it was like.

…maybe she could leave sooner, rather than later? Go up to the room she'd been given to stay in for the night and avail herself of the detachable shower head in her private bathroom? She was just pondering the logistics of her escape when she realized, to her abject horror, that Jack Sparrow _was looking back at her_. As she gaped moonily over his supreme hotness.

"Oh, gods," she breathed.

He shot her a smile like a naked blade, beads flashing in those dreadlocks, which somehow managed to look less ridiculous than they would on anyone else, and she jerked back, gazing from side to side for a way to disappear.

A waitress dressed like the bride of Frankenstein flitted by and Brienne availed herself of one of the girl's cold beers, desperate for some relief. She wedged herself further against the coffin and pressed the chilled can to her flushed cheeks and throat. Her eyes closed in relief and, unbidden but inescapable, she experienced the first of what would be a goodly number of naughty fantasies with the pirate in a starring role.

In one, she tied him down with the many floaty scarves he wore; in another, she stripped him bare of every stitch… but left the thigh-high boots on, and licked anything not covered by the shiny leather. And then there was the one where he tied _her_ down with the floaty scarves and climbed aboard and—

"My goodness, commodore, you look parched," said a velvety voice, dark with amusement. Brienne opened her eyes and lowered the can from where she'd been running it over her hot skin in more of a caress than an attempt at relief.

_It was him._ Jack Sparrow, and he looked even more delicious from up close. Brienne was utterly lost for words. And terrified.

"Perhaps if you drank the beer instead of masturbating with it," he suggested, eyes glinting in humor.

Brienne stared blankly at him as the plethora of sexy imaginings she'd been indulging in all crashed and burned at the same time. Had he truly just said that? To _her_? Why was he there? Rather, why was he not with someone— anyone— else? Surely her gawking at him like a horny lunatic should have repelled him instead of drawing him nearer.

As always when Brienne felt outmatched or overwhelmed— and Captain Sparrow made her feel both at the same time, to her intense chagrin— she resorted to her number-one coping mechanism: escape and avoidance. Without a word, she extracted herself from the coffin's comforting embrace and fled the great hall for somewhere smaller, quieter, more sparsely populated.

Except that he followed her.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, jogging to catch up to her long strides. When she didn't stop, he grabbed at her arm and tugged her to a halt, laughing.

Brienne froze, something within urging her to just… try. Try talking to him, try engaging instead of withdrawing. The roguish pirate laughing was, somehow, even more fetching than him merely smiling. She felt a little dazed by his dazzling presence, she had to admit, if only to herself. One of those fantasies floated into her mind's eye once more, where she rode his face until his silly fake goatee and moustache were drenched, and she found her breath coming faster.

"We both know that if you masturbated, it wouldn't be by rubbing a cold can of beer over yourself," he continued.

_Ah_. He wasn't being outrageous, just bent on humiliating her, and that, she would not tolerate. Brienne peeled away his hand, for some reason still on her arm, and departed once more.

He trailed behind in her wake.

"I was just joking," he complained. "C'mon."

She'd heard _that_ a few hundred times. It was no less obnoxious coming from the best-looking man she'd ever seen; in fact, it was _more_ obnoxious, being such a contrast to those glorious good looks. Brienne ducked past another fake cobweb in the doorway to yet another cavernous chamber and, by doffing her tall admiral's hat and crouching until she was no taller than anyone else, managed to lose him.

For far too short a time. Within mere seconds— or so it seemed— he was by her side yet again.

"Okay, no more talk about masturbation," he said cheerfully. "Though if you change your mind on that, just let me know." He eyed her closely, top to bottom and back up again. "If you're so determined to hide, why wear such an eye-catching costume?"

"It's not a costume," she snapped, forgetting her vow not to speak to him in the heat of the moment.

"You dress like that as a regular thing?" he asked slowly, brows coming together in puzzlement. Shards of light from yet another disco ball hanging listlessly from the ceiling, kept being thrown about by her coat's gold braid trim; the space around them had become a scintillating wonderland of opalescent sparkles. His eyes, peridot green, looked lit by a thousand candles.

Between that and her annoyance at her carefully sewn garb being referred to as a mere costume, all the good work done by the cold beer was negated as Brienne's cheeks flamed once more.

"I'm— it's— I do historical re-enactment," she muttered reluctantly, unable to hold that gem-bright gaze, instead trailing her own down past his chin to his bronzed, muscle-corded neck and the slice of sun-kissed chest where golden hair peeped coyly from where he hadn't bothered to button his shirt.

She wanted to lick it. His chest hair, his chest, his neck, his cheekbones. Everything. The mental image of him in nothing but the thigh-high boots swam before her again and she stumbled back as her knees weakened, just for a moment.

He reached out to steady her. She shied away like he was holding out scorpions or baby alligators and left again, winnowing through the crowd to another room. Behind a giant ficus, she stripped off her dark blue frock coat in hopes that it would not serve as a homing beacon for her bafflingly relentless pursuer. Folding the coat with meticulous care, she stashed it with her hat in one of the bookcases flanking the tall windows and relished the cool air against her overheated body.

Now, down to her snug nankeen trousers, close-fitting double-breasted waistcoat, high-polished knee-high Hessians, and full-sleeved shirt, she ducked her head in a futile attempt to shrink into nothingness, the better to hide from the world's most annoying person.

"Yo ho, ho!"

_Oh, gods._

"You're a hard woman to get to know," he said, his head cocked to one side like a curious… sparrow.

"Why would you _want_ to?" she blurted.

His eyes widened in surprise, and his lips parted, probably so he could say something else confusing, but then his most recent greeting caught up with Brienne's agitation-delayed wits.

"Did you just call me a ho?" she demanded.

"Yeah." He grinned, unrepentant. "You know, 'and a bottle of rum'? It's funny."

_Maybe to you_. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

His grin faded, to something more thoughtful. "Weeellllll," he began in a teasing drawl that made her simultaneously want to punch and kiss him. "I'm a pirate, you're a naval officer… aren't _you_ supposed to be chasing _me_?"

As if she'd ever put herself forward for a public display of humiliation like that. Her snort of skepticism and roll of the eyes had him laughing again.

"I mean, you know what they say about the navy," he continued. She didn't. At her blank look, he leaned in close, smelling tantalizingly of spiced rum— since when was the smell of liquor on a man attractive?— and whispered, "Buggery, commodore. Buggery." Straightening, he shot her an arch glance. "Should I be watching my ass for a nefarious attempt on my virtue?"

Aaaaaaand now she had another image for her appalling little spank bank: this galaxy-class irritant (still in the high boots; she was forming a regrettable fetish, it would seem) bent over while she approached with a dildo strapped on… no, he was on his back and she moving to cover him… no, she was on _her_ back and he was straddling her, as eager to be taken as she was to take him—

"Hello?"

He was waving his hand in front of her face, and Brienne realized she'd actually zoned out in front of him while spinning her sordid fantasy.

She fled again.

Shooting a panicked look around the room, she found she was back where she'd started: Winterfell's great hall. She slipped through the thronging horde of guests to where Sansa, bewitching in a rococo gown of spring green, russet hair swept into a towering up-do complete with a birdcage and live occupant woven into the auburn strands, was holding court with a few of her faithful acolytes.

"Sansa," she whispered into her friend's ear, drawing her aside, "there's a crazy man here who won't leave me alone. He keeps following me from room to room and talking about… about sex things."

Sansa gazed up with an expression of absolute delight. "_Really?_" she gasped. "That's _wonderful_." Her speech was usually peppered with liberal use of italics, and that time was no different. "I've been hoping and _hoping_ for you to meet a nice man who—"

"He's not a _nice man_," Brienne interrupted in a frustrated hiss, employing a few italics of her own to emphasize the sarcasm in her words. "He's the worst person who's ever lived."

Sansa's eyes widened in dismay. "Did he try something _bad_?" she asked, her face shifting from pleasure to confusion to rage in the blink of an eye. "Did he _touch_ you? If he _touched_ you, Brienne, I'll kill him _myself_."

Brienne softened in the face of her friend's ire on her behalf. Sansa would do no such thing— she was a lover, not a fighter, and the idea of her being able to make any sort of physical impact against the pirate was laughable. Sansa was so slim and delicate, whereas the pirate was so tall and his hand on Brienne's arm had been strong; he might even be strong enough to take her, and why did the idea of them grappling— of them grappling and Brienne losing and him _taking_ her— have her swallowing convulsively?

"No," she said hoarsely. "He's done nothing but talk. It's just… talk I don't want to hear."

Sansa relaxed visibly. "Which one _is_ he?" she asked. "That doesn't sound like _anyone_ I know, and _I_ made up the guest list…"

Brienne scanned the crowd but, for the first time in a while, he was nowhere to be seen. "I don't know," she said in puzzlement. "He was on my tail since the minute he got here, but now he's gone." She turned back to Sansa. "Maybe he got tired of it and decided to go do something _both_ people would find fun."

"What does he _look_ like?" asked Sansa. "What _costume_ is he wearing?"

"He's— he—." Brienne had no way of describing him without revealing the extent of her appreciation for his face and form, in what was sure to be the world's most awkward confession of desire. "He's dressed like Jack Sparrow."

"Handsome?" Sansa said, awareness dawning on her face, and a certain sly humor.

Brienne snorted, hoping her friend would understand it as 'Handsome? Hardly,' when in reality it was more like 'Handsome? That word doesn't describe the half of it.' Alas, Sansa was far cannier than Brienne would have liked and saw through her like cheap cellophane, beaming with joy at the incontrovertible evidence that her stalwart friend, never one to express an emotion when it could be repressed instead, had finally been snagged. Or at least that her libido had been snagged.

"That's Jaime," she announced. "Our family has known his _forever_. Our parents don't get along, and his sister has the personality of a _bog witch_, only not as _pleasant_. But he and his _brother_ are nice, that's why we invited _them_." She peered at Brienne. "I've _never_ known him to talk about sex before, though. I wonder why he's doing it _tonight_… maybe he thinks it's in-_character_?"

"Whatever it is, it's annoying," Brienne grumbled, tugging at the bottom of her waistcoat. It barely came to the faint curve where her hips flared out, and her trousers were so close-fitted that she felt intensely exposed, without the frock coat to cover her butt, as if everything were out there for all and sundry to observe—

"There you are," said a silken voice, breath caressing her neckthroat as a hard, hot body stepped close to her. "I couldn't find you anywhere, I thought you'd walked the plank—"

She spun around, needing to put distance between them before she gave in to the shameful urge to slump back against him, let him take her weight, he looked like he could manage it, he could slip into her from behind and—

"Jaime!" exclaimed Sansa, smiling but with a predatory glint in her eye that Brienne, with a sinking stomach, recognized: she was on the hunt and would not be evaded. "Brienne says you've been saying outrageous things to her all night."

"Brienne," he repeated, slowly, as if he were tasting the letters, his tongue caressing the syllables. His eyes met Brienne's and for a moment, he just _stared_ at her. "Yes, I— I suppose I have," he admitted, without a hint of shame, then pouted charmingly. "But she keeps running away."

"You have all the finesse of a wrecking ball," sighed another male voice. Brienne looked down to find a little person had joined them. Unlike everyone else, he was wearing regular street clothes. "Tyrion," he said, holding up a hand for Brienne to shake, then stretching up on tiptoes to reach Sansa as she bent down to exchange cheek-kisses. "This idiot's brother."

"N-nice to meet you?" said Brienne, darting a glance around the room for the nearest exit. She didn't want to spend any time with Pirate Captain Jaime, or his brother, or even Sansa. She just wanted to go up to her guest room and strip off the rest of her clothes, all damped with nervous sweat by that point, and make some time with that detachable shower head…

"Are you irreparably traumatized by my brother's tragic attempts to flirt with you?" asked Tyrion, amusement clear in his sonorous voice. "You look like a cornered rabbit."

"Feel like one, too," Brienne muttered, steadfastly avoiding Jaime's eye as she scoped out an escape route, head whirling in bemusement. _Flirting?_ The windows weren't _that_ high off the ground; she'd probably break only a single ankle if she dropped from one—

"I'm tired," she announced abruptly. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sansa." She gave Tyrion a brisk nod of farewell, flinched away from Jaime, and strode off.

She got no further than three steps away before he was beside her, easily keeping pace.

"Can we start over?" he asked. "Because we seem to be at cross-purposes, and I don't want us to be. We should be aligned, don't you think?"

Brienne paused, staring hard at him. His eyes were bright, with a glaze of something she didn't recognize in them, and he looked like he was breathing harder, though he hadn't exerted himself running after her.

"Aligned all the way down," he continued, stepping closer. "So everything fits together just as it should."

By the time Jaime finished speaking, they were a mere inch apart, his face swaying before hers, mesmerizing, putting Brienne in mind of a snake-charmer casting his spell over a hapless snake.

"Just say what you're trying to say," she told him in a low, furious voice. "I don't understand your jokes and figures of speech and innuendo. Just… what do you want?"

He studied her for a long, silent moment before grabbing her hand and yanking her from the hall. The corridor was dark, lit atmospherically by torches, and quiet, the heavy stone muting the celebration they left behind. Wordlessly, Jaime guided her out of Winterfell and into the courtyard.

"Where…?" Brienne asked when he didn't speak or halt, but he didn't answer, just propelled her across the snowy expanse toward an old, crumbling tower.

Inside was a spiraling set of stairs, and Jaime tugged on her hand until she climbed them after him. At the top, he released her and they looked around, but besides a heap of old crates, some straggling and half-dead vines, and a dusting of snow through the half-collapsed roof, there was nothing.

"I've always felt this would be the perfect place for an assignation," he said at last, watching her carefully.

And Brienne's frustration came boiling up, spilling forth in angry words. "Will you just say what you mean!" she exclaimed.

Jaime scowled, equally frustrated, it would seem. "This would be a good place to fuck!" he all but shouted. "I want to fuck you here! And in my room. In your room. In any room. Or outside. Or anywhere at all."

She stared at him while absorbing his words. Her initial reaction was of relief; _thank the gods_, she thought. Her second reaction was skepticism, but… nothing about the situation felt premeditated. It seemed unlikely that he had ulterior or nefarious purposes in telling her that. So… on the assumption that he meant it…

"But… here?" It was cold enough for their breath to come in misty plumes. "It's so… cold." She didn't want frostbite on her butt, _or_ his; marring such a work of art would be a travesty. "And… why? Why _me_, I mean?"

"Why?" Jaime goggled at her, as if he couldn't understand the question. Then he seemed to recall to whom he was speaking, a woman who needed everything spelled out to her in crystal clarity, and squared his shoulders as if preparing for battle.

"Because I like your costume— outfit—" he corrected hastily when Brienne glowered at him again— "and how it matches mine, the pirate and the naval commander. Because the way you frown at me is cute. Because your eyes are beautiful. Because your ass is _phenomenal_. Because I want to wear your legs as a necklace."

He stepped closer, until their frosty breaths mingled, turning into labored panting at the proximity.

"Because you're shy, and the idea of you screaming as I make you come gets me hard as one of these stones."

Jaime reached out and rapped his knuckles against one of the frigid blocks making up the tower.

"If you don't want to, that's fine." He paused. "No, that's not fine, because it will mean I go back to my room and jerk off while thinking of you the rest of the night. That'll be really frustrating. But if you don't want to, I'll leave you alone."

He gazed up at Brienne from under a thick fringe of lashes so golden even just the dim light from the courtyard's torches, flickering up through the tower's arrow slits, made them gleam.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

Brienne contemplated her options, while trying to remember how to breathe. She could say no, and just like Jaime, return to her room and wank to thoughts of him. But that seemed rather pointless, when they wanted each other, and they were both willing. What was stopping her? Was there any purpose to saying no? What did she risk by agreeing?

So little to chance, so much to gain.

"Yes," she said at last.

His face fell, the hopefulness falling abruptly away, and she thought back to what he'd said.

"I mean— no! No, I don't want you to leave me alone. Yes, I want you to fuck me until I scream." The last was said hurriedly, breathlessly, the words needing to spill forth, unable to be contained any longer.

"Thank the gods," Jaime muttered, and then he was— there. Right there, up against Brienne, crowding her back against the nearest crate with his body, hands already everywhere, and his mouth was a _revelation, _hot and wet and relentless, kissing her slowly, deeply, like drinking from a silver chalice, with care and reverence and hunger.

Her hands were busy, too, practically clawing at his sash, his shirt, desperate to get to his skin.

"Ahhhhh," he groaned when she raked her nails across his back, hips lurching forward in search of the soft, welcoming haven between her thighs. "I knew— I knew it would be like this," he gasped. "I saw you and I thought of how strong you looked, how good you'd feel."

"I saw you and thought of you tying me up with your stupid scarves and fucking me with those boots still on," Brienne admitted, then sank her teeth into the delectable slope of his trapezius. He made her mouth water, made _everything_ water, and she was dazed, stunned, with desire as he moaned and writhed against her.

"You're going to make me come just like this," Jaime whispered. "Just keep talking to me like that, kissing me, doing— oh, gods, yes, doing that."

_That_ was her hand insinuated between them to rub at the long, thick ridge of his erection where it jutted eagerly toward her.

"Wear my legs as a necklace, huh?" Brienne whispered back. She'd managed to divest him of the sash, had peeled open his waistcoat and shirt and those leather trousers. His cock, silky-skinned and stone-hard, fell into her hands, and he sighed in relief.

"Fuck you with my tongue," he agreed breathlessly. He'd been busy, too, prying her britches open and down and off, and he hefted her up to sit on the edge of the crate. She sucked in a breath at the shock of cold against her ass but it didn't matter, nothing mattered except—

"I thought about that, too," she panted, winding her legs around his waist and reeling him in. "Kneeling over your face—"

"Yes, _gods_—" Jaime put himself into her, sliding deep as they shared a slow, voluptuous kiss. He began thrusting, powerful and smooth and fast, as if he couldn't bear to work up from a slower tempo. "After this… I'll do that, after this."

"Even with your—"

"Yes, lick it out of you—"

Arousal was a flash-fire over her skin, through her flesh, runnels of it permeating her chest, her thighs, the very center of her, twisting around her awareness of him along with the image of it in her mind's eye, and Brienne came, keening and bucking against Jaime. He gave a hoarse shout and jerked in the grasp of her arms and legs, pulling free and splashing her belly and thighs with his semen.

After he caught his breath, he stretched up for another kiss, pressing close. "I barely remembered in time," he murmured while nuzzling her temple and ear. "Sorry for the mess."

"I'm on the patch," she sighed, her voice faint and fucked-out, blissful in the aftermath. She nuzzled back. The scent of rum on his skin had been tempered by his delicious male aroma, clean sweat and pheromones, and the sharp scent of his spend, mingling with her own musk, thickly perfumed the air around them.

Jaime drew back with a smile Brienne could only describe as gleeful. "Let's give it a workout," he suggested, using the tail of one of his scarves to wipe her off. "How long are you here?"

"I live in Wintertown. I'm just staying at the castle tonight so I don't have to worry about driving home so late," she mumbled against the satiny flesh of his shoulder, caressing it with her lips before leaning back and pulling his shirt closed and buttoning it up. Now that they were done enjoying each other, the bite of the cold was asserting itself once more. Her ass felt like it was freezing to the crate's lid. "You?"

"I live in Riverrun. But I work from home. As long as I get everything done, I can do it anywhere." He tossed the soiled scarf aside with aplomb before helping her off the crate and to re-dress. Once she was clothed again, he wound his arms around her waist and pulled her to lean against him when her legs threatened to collapse. He said not a word, but she could feel him smiling against her neck.

_Smug_, Brienne thought, but couldn't muster any irritation. Jaime had reason to be smug. That had been spectacular. He was right to be pleased with himself. She was certainly pleased, and congratulated herself for her courage in accepting his offer instead of running off in terror as she'd felt the impulse to.

"Did you know the showers have detachable shower heads?" she asked, pleased when his dirty smile told her he understood the inference right away.

"Is that right?" He took her hand and led her down out of the tower the same way he'd led her into it. "Your room or mine?"

"Mine," said Brienne, deciding to be bold, to own her actions, to claim what she wanted, and she took the lead in wending their way through the crowd once back inside the castle. He pulled at her grasp and she looked back to see him snagging something off the drinks table; it wasn't until they exited the public areas for the quieter, private part where guests were staying the night that she saw what he'd gotten.

"Yo ho, ho," he said once more, holding it up.

She laughed as she opened her door and pulled him inside. "And a bottle of rum."


End file.
